ALPHARETTA, Ga.— QSpex Technologies is launching a prescription eyewear service model designed to provide rapid delivery of finished eyewear within local markets.

Until now, QSpex has marketed compact, in-office ophthalmic lens casting systems for eyecare professionals and optical retailers. Now the company is repositioning itself with a community-based lens production and service center concept that provides same-day turnaround on prescription eyewear and personalized customer support.

QSpex opened its first QSpex Optical Service Center in July inside its corporate headquarters here, and is serving about 40 professional offices and retail locations within the greater Atlanta area, QSpex CEO and president Brett Craig told VMail. Craig said QSpex plans to open more facilities throughout the country in other markets with high concentrations of eyecare professionals.

The service centers will cast lenses on demand instead of surfacing them, as a traditional prescription lab would. ECPs will order the lenses through a proprietary online system, and send the patient’s frame to the center using a special messenger service. Customers will receive the lenses on the same day they are ordered, and have them personally delivered to either their office or directly to the patient via QSpex’s fleet of artistically wrapped and branded, environmentally friendly, Mercedes-produced smart cars.

“The QSpex Optical Service Centers will offer a complete range of state-of-the-art high definition progressive and single vision lenses, utilizing a pioneering touchless transfer technology that provides a precise and unadulterated surface geometry,” said Craig, a veteran optical industry executive who took over in January as QSpex’s president and CEO.

Craig said QSpex’s new service model is designed to deliver improved service experience, technology advancements and pricing/margin structure to eye care professionals and retailers, due to the manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies the company has achieved in lens and lens treatment production.

“We’ve run very comprehensive qualitative and quantitative research that validates the need for increased delivery speed and convenience in the optical retail channel,” Craig told VMail. “Other consumables are moving in this direction, so consumers are used to this kind of service. We’re confident that there will be a percentage of the ECP market that will see the benefit of speed and convenience.” He added that QSpex will undertake “a consumer marketing effort intended to drive awareness to the ECPs office” in applicable local markets.”

Craig said pricing will be based on a three-tiered plan that lets customers select the level of service and lens design they want. He said the highest level of service will include a “concierge” level that allows ECPs to have an optician personally deliver and fit a patient’s glasses.